The Aftermath
by Tallielle
Summary: post-47 seconds and the Limey. Beckett and Castle have seemed to fallen apart. What happens when she shows up at his door early in the morning, begging to talk? By the way: Castle belongs to ABC and the torturous Andrew Marlowe.
1. Introduction

"_You are my sweetest downfall,_

_I loved you first, I loved you first!_

_Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth,_

_I have to go, I have to go..." "Samson" lyrics, Regina Spektor._

**Castle's POV**

He'd almost forgotten their coffee that day he had been so wrapped up in thinking about her on the way over to the precinct. He had turned into the Starbuck's up the street at the last second to make sure he didn't miss their little ritual. It would be especially important that day. There were shadows in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a while, and in their beautiful shifting depths he had seen a heavy melancholy that he wanted to dispel. A caffeine kiss was in order. And it wasn't just for her benefit. He would be grateful for just the brush of her fingertips against his, the warm tingle that they sent through him. Lately her gaze had been lingering on his for longer and he could have sworn he saw a question there, fleetingly visible, before it disappeared back into their enigmatic depths. Her lips always twisted into a slight smile of thanks. It was always just a quick quirk of a corner, but that was all he needed. It was always that corner of her mouth where he imagined she kept her sweetest kisses. Yes, a caffeine kiss was definitely in order. The brush of the fingertips. The fleeting question. That secret mona-lisa smile.

"Where is Kate?" the good-natured Irish-American cop had almost looked startled to see him. Ryan glanced up and gave Castle a tired smirk before filling him in on the most current details of the case. A bolt of excitement shuddered through him, and Ryan though he almost saw the man twitch with excitement. How had he missed so much in such a short time? He hurried to the two-way pane of glass right outside the tank, almost spilling the hot coffee all down his arm on his way. He caught it at the last second and smiled smugly to himself, glad he had avoided the disaster. He was anxious to see Kate in action.

And then...there she was. Castle could tell it was intense before he even clued into her conversation. She had that look on her face like a tiger zoning in on its kill. The fire behind her eyes took him aback a little; made his breathing quicken. She was in her element. There. Focused. Graceful. Intense. Magnificent. Extraordinary. He loved her when she was like this; in _situ_. He always felt like he got a glimpse of her raw and unbridled emotion through these moments, a glimpse into her fiery core. And God when she was worked up...

"You don't get to use that excuse." She barked. "You want to know trauma? I was shot in the chest...and I remember every. Second. Of. It." Her words jumped to his ears and seared them like a hot brand. He slowed down what she had just said. Rewound. Replayed.

His world slowed down. The hand holding the coffee trembled for a second, then steadied. His breathing grew shallow. His chest got tight. Then the impact of her words ripped through him. He had been shot with a bullet of her making, right to his chest. He reached for something solid, to help him stand. She remembered. Every. Godforsaken. second. She knew, she knew...she knew. She knew...what he'd said.

The magnitude of the realization came at him in waves, like the aftershocks mimicking the catastrophic earthquake before.

_She knew. She knew._ He gulped for oxygen with the desperation of a drowning man and it filled his lungs in big, burning gasps. He was emotionally floundering; absolutely lost. All he thought he had known had been ripped away so completely with that one phrase. He felt like he had been sucker punched in the gut.

Finally he spoke it aloud, his words only a whisper. "All this time...she knew." He couldn't even complete the sentence. He felt the walls closing in on him as a rush of confused emotions flooded into the hole her words had left in his chest. He felt anger first; white hot and searing, coursing through his veins like molten lava. Then he felt despair. Hurt. That was the only way to describe it. He wanted to rage and roar like a wounded bull. He wanted to yell in her face, grab her by the shoulders and beg her to answer all the questions in his heart, to decode the one he thought he had seen in her eyes.

But she couldn't see him so broken open! No, she couldn't see him so bare-boned and vulnerable in front of her. He'd shown her his heart once and only been rewarded with silence, he wouldn't let himself make the same mistake twice. He knew what he had to do. He took a deep breath and walked out of the precinct, his heart and his stomach in his shoes. He had to go. He had to go home.


	2. Chapter 1

"_Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down,_

_Man for judgement must prepare me,_

_Spare, oh God and Mercy spare me." ~Icarus, Regina Spektor_

**Castle's POV**

He couldn't sleep, there were too many wayward thoughts swimming around in the stormy seas of his head. He cast a cursory glance at the digital clock on his bedside table. The glowing red numbers burned bright in the dark. _3:02._ He tried to recall the last time he was up early enough for pale slivers of pre-dawn moonlight to peek between his shades and cast ghostly shadows on his floor. He had probably been with Kate, walking into some crime scene as he tried to wake up sluggish limbs and shake the sand of sleep from his drowsy eyes.

_Kate._ Her name bounced around in his chest cavity and landed where it still hurt. He felt his facial muscle pulling down into a frown, which he knew was one of the most strenuous and aging of the expressions. He still felt cold and numb. He had been Icarus, climbing towards the sun. He had gotten too close to the beautiful thing, shining and warm and his wings of wax had melted, plummeting him to the sea. Had it been worth it? That feeling of flying? The thrill of the wide blue ocean glinting under his wings and the mystery and grandeur of his future winking at him over the green mountains? Had it been worth it to climb that high just to spin away down into a dark abyss like a doomed plane? Now he was drowning in a frigid dark sea, mired in with what he viewed as his stupidity and regret.

He let out a puff of air at the ceiling and drew a frustrated hand across his eyes. His emotions sat heavily on his chest and pooled and sloshed in his stomach like rancid milk.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and the clear and beautiful image of her face floated to the surface of his mind and settled softly behind his eyelids. He wondered at that face, and how furious it had looked when he had been off gallivanting with some blonde he had found at a PR event for his new graphic novels. She was attractive, but had nowhere near the type of effect that Kate had on him. Had she been a pawn? An attempt at a rebound? He didn't really know, but he did know one thing, his heart just hadn't been in it. A bubble of confusion popped in his brain. The way Beckett had been acting, it had almost been like she was jealous. Had he done it to make her jealous?

Maybe. He couldn't say he hadn't been at least a little pleased when he saw a flash-bang of green in her eyes. And he could have sworn he saw that flash in them, heard the green serpent slither into some of her snide comments throughout the case.

He rustled around in the sheets, flailing like the wounded bird he was. He couldn't get comfortable so he lethargically pulled himself up, the grey stripes of moonlight suddenly falling across his tortured, tired eyes.

Oh. His eyes flutter-blinked open and shut. Blood knocked around against his temple like an impatient racehorse at the starting gate. He winced and clenched his eyes shut once, hoping to beat back the pain with sheer will power. What had he drunk last night?

He squinted over at his bedside table again and then caught the red glimmer of the digital numbers off of the glass of a bottle. _Jameson. _He should have guessed-whiskey was always the best kind of company to his specific brand of misery. Despite the haze around his head he still felt compelled to move and lazily forced himself to climb out of bed if not only to retrieve the bottle of Advil from the kitchen. He padded into the silent space, his bare feet slapping on the flat surface of the cool tile. Something stopped him on the way to the cabinet...his phone gave a tiny blink from the charging station and his hand automatically reached for it. He absent-mindedly touched the screen, bringing the gadget to life in the blue-dark glow of the kitchen twilight.

**NEW TEXT MESSAGE: FROM BECKETT**

He crushed the urge to immediately delete it and wrestled back the feelings he felt start to rise like burning bile in his throat.

**Beckett: Why would that even matter to you? But for your information, I am alone tonight.**

He sighed like a sleepy dog and scrolled to his sent messages, murmuring the last one he had sent her half aloud to himself.

"Hope you're having a good night, even though your probably off somewhere with 007 swooning over his British accent."

Ugh. Had he really said that? Embarrassment flooded the pit of his stomach with heat. He threw the phone back onto the counter and charged at the cabinet containing the advil, desperate to dispel the ever-worsening pounding in his head.

He stood still in his kitchen for a moment and then...out of habit...tiptoed into the living room and sank into the couch; his usual late night brooding spot. He sat there for a moment and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. How had they come to this? His hand fumbled around on the coffee table and finally fell upon a miniscule, one button remote. He clicked on the projector and Johanna Beckett's murder board flared up before his water blue eyes. He stared at it harder than he had in a long time. All he wanted was answers.

Johanna's face stared back at him in the silence of his living room and the image jogged his memory. Beckett's own words suddenly drifted into his consciousness. His eyes widened in the lonely darkness. Could it be possible that he had been so wrong?


	3. Chapter 2

"_How many times will you let me change my mind and turn around?_

_I can't decide if I'll let you save my life or I'll drown."_

_~"Arms" Christina Perri_

**Beckett's POV**

She was running, wild blood thundering through her veins, sweat pooling in the white pit of her scar.

"CASTLE! CASTLE!" she was screaming his name, a desperate plea to the heavens, trying to strike a bargain with God.

This time it was he at the podium, looking grey and drawn in his funeral suit, the blue blaze of the hot sky in stark contrast with his rain colored figure. She knew what would happen next, it was what always happened in this dream. This was the part that slowed down; where the seconds seemed like minutes, where her heart stopped it's frantic and frenzied knocking against her slim rib cage. The shot rang out, rending the still and hazy air like an arrow.

"CASTLE!" she roared for him again and fought the heavy rock of panic that threatened to press in on her chest and crush her, root her to her spot. Every fiber of her being twitched into action and she hurtled herself towards his prostrate figure, frantic and intense in her journey towards him. She needed to get to him. She needed him.

Scarlet and emerald flashed into her memory when she arrived at his side and she could taste blood and bile and bullets on her tongue. She pressed her hands to his wound as determined as she could to stop the bleeding. She felt his heart beating under her hands, his blood pooling and swirling and bubbling up, sticky between her slender fingers.

She felt tears pool in her throat, a thick and salty cocktail of sorrow, shock and determination. Shocked blue eyes met misty brown ones.

"Stay with me, Castle." She barked it out through clenched teeth, and ignored the sickening hand of dread that was pawing at her stomach.

"Please." She pleaded with him, begged him.

She saw the beautiful glimmer in his bright eyes dull a little.

"Please stay." She floundered, the words were thick through unshed tears. Just then one leaked from her eye and fell like a raindrop onto his nose.

He weakly reached up and brushed a wayward curl back from her distressed face.

"Kate." He breathed it out as soft as a ghostly memory.

"Shhh." She drew her face close into his, and she could feel her own heart splintering and breaking in her chest. "Castle, look at me, focus on me. You have to stay with me. You have to stay awake!"

"So beautiful..."

"CASTLE." She threw his name out at him like a sailor throwing a life raft to a drowning man. She could feel him slipping away and she was frantically searching for a way to bring him back to her. "DAMN IT! WHERE ARE THE PARAMEDICS!" she knew what her shrieking made her sound like, and she didn't care.

"Hey." She said to him more softly, her voice cracking. "Hey, you just need to stay awake a little longer. I need you to stay with me."

"Mmmm." She could see him fading, could feel his bullet broken heart quickening under the pressure of her shaking hands.

"I need you here." Her tears were flowing freely now. "Please, Castle. Please." And then, because it seemed like the only thing to do, she leaned over and pressed her warm, salt stained lips to the ones that were growing colder.

"I love you. Do you hear me? Castle! I LOVE YOU." She wanted to give him that truth to hang onto, so he'd have a light when the darkness closed in, a night-light to wave around when he could no longer stare it down.

She thought she saw him smile faintly and then, "Kaaaaate." It was an exhale, and then he wasn't with her anymore.

"NO. NO DAMN YOU! CASSSTTTLEEE!" She noticed great, big sobs coming from somewhere around her, keening and haunted. Her eyes widened when she realized they were coming from her.

She snapped awake in a tangled of messy, twisted sheets, soaked to the core in sweat and tears. She wrapped both arms around herself in a hug, blinking away the tears still in her eyes, silently chiding her jumping heart to quiet.

Rain tap-tap-tapped its unsteady rhythm against her windowpane, the silver-grey needles of water matching the miniature rivers on her face. She fluttered her eyes, once, twice, trying to dispel the shroud of sorrow that hung over them. Tears were still thick and slimy in her throat and her mouth was dry.

Oh. She was awake. The realization of everything that had just happened over the past couple of days crashed in upon her again and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Her weary and tear bright eyes wandered over to her bedside table and fell to rest upon the quaint little vase of flowers that sat there. She had been curious when the delivery man had rang her doorbell and then when she'd read the note attached to them she'd nearly dropped them right there in her front hallway. She had had to lean against her wall to collect herself; to pull together the burning shrapnel that had exploded in her chest cavity.

She reached over and flicked on the light and blindly reached again for the little card, already crinkled and worn by her hands.

There, in Martha's dainty and spiky script, was a simple note.

_He thinks you don't love him._

It was so simple, just six words, and yet it spoke volumes. The realization of everything it meant thundered in the hallways of her heart. She pressed the note to her chest, as if she could keep her own heart from breaking if she pressed hard enough.

A thought flew like quicksilver into her foggy mind. She glanced at the clock. _6:34._ Whatever had happened between them, she needed to fix it. She knew what she needed to do. And so Kate Beckett rose like a Phoenix from the Ashes, put her two feet on the floor and prepared to confront love head on.


	4. Chapter 3

**Author's note: Thanks SO MUCH for the reviews! Even though there are only 6, reviews are what keep me writing! So pleas, if you like my fic, leave a little love! As far as Martha sending the flowers and then note...I figured that someone like her couldn't just stand idly by and watch as things fall apart! Here is my latest installment, enjoy and please R AND R. Oh, and I don't own Castle **

"_Stitch in your knitted brow,_

_And you don't know how,_

_You're gonna get it out,_

_Crushed under heavy chest,_

_Trying to catch your breath,_

_There's hope..."  
>~Hope for the Hopeless, A Fine Frenzy.<em>

"_Of all the things I never told you,_

_This is the lump in my throat,_

_No matter who had come a-callin'_

_I would have stayed with you,_

_I would have stayed with you..."_

_~Hollow and Bold, Marla Hanson_

**Castle&Beckett's POV**

_Buzz, Buzz, Buzzzzzz._ Vibrations echoed sharply into the warm darkness of sleep. Castle ignored the first three vibrations, another disturbance in his fitful slumber. He cursed himself when he found himself desperately reaching for his phone by the fourth buzz and snapping it open to answer. His heart sunk and turned in a slowly lazy waltz in his chest and the sickening feeling in his heart he had desperately tried to numb with alcohol the night before sharply beat back to life.

"Castle." He sounded so weary and world worn on the other end of the phone. Tired, bitter. Kate's heart broke just a little more in her already mangled chest when she thought about the fact that she had everything to do with the lack of brightness in his normally warm voice. She struggled to unstick the words from her sorrow-scratched throat.

When she did they were breathless and soft, a ghost of what she wanted them to be. She was still crying, her salty tears mixed in with the cold slivers of rain that she had let drench her face.

"Come to your door." It was soft and tinged with blue, a desperate breathy plea. Castle's heart contracted at how wounded and vulnerable she sounded. He longed to reach out to her, ask her what was wrong, gather up her small and broken frame into his arms and just hold her until her pain was gone. But no, that was the old him, the one that had a chance of being loved back by the woman he so deeply adored. Still, he found himself pushing his way up out of the warm, body worn couch and onto his feet. He threw a cursory glance at the bottle of whiskey and the half filled tumbler on the coffee table and then dismissed it. Let her see, let her see what she had done to him. He then turned his eyes on the door and stared hard. Okay. He steeled himself with a hard swallow, as if he could pull back all his raging feelings into his body with that one action. Then he took a step towards the door. And another.

In the hallway outside Kate tried to compose herself. She was a mess. Her hair was spread about her shoulders like so many muddy rivers and it was starting to frizz and curl in a halo around her head. Her sopping clothes clung and stuck to her body, slick with rain and regret. The mascara she had hastily put on before she left her apartment now ran down her face in large black tracks, spidering out from her pain-glossed brown eyes. He was taking his time. Kate pressed a hand against the door to steady herself and then pressed her forehead into her hands as she felt a new and awful wave of grief and anger overtake her. How could they have both been so stupid? Why was love such a delicate dance? And God, Oh God, how she hated being vulnerable. She found herself angry at him too-for his ignorance, his second guessing, his immature antics, his lack of being able to figure her out.

The door creaked open and for a moment nothing moved. Emotions collided like a train wreck in the stillness and the quiet that hung around them was the loudest thing that Kate had though she had ever heard. She withdrew her head from her hands and looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes.

_Oh. Oh. Oh._ Castle was struggling with the impact of seeing her so disheveled ad forlorn, so broken open in front of him. He felt an awful feeling spread through his chest. He wanted to hold her-out of instinct, out of habit. He crossed his arms across his chest instead and stood his ground.

"Kate." He had meant for it to come out strong and cold, unfeeling. Instead it came out strangled, and strained; raw. He knew his voice and eyes gave him away, told her of his struggle.

She saw him fighting with himself, with what to do. He unfolded his hands and stuck them in the pockets of his pajama pants...she briefly noticed they were shaking.

"Castle, I..." she choked it out, just barely, and the look of helplessness she gave him broke down his resolve to freeze her out. His shoulders sagged. "Come in. Um. Please. I'll get you a blanket and some towels." He saw some of the tenseness escape from her and he could swear he heard the sound of her heart folding in on itself. She followed him in, awkward and unsure as a newborn colt. That is exactly how she felt—wobbly on her feet, not sure of how to put one foot in front of the other.

"We need to talk." She bit out the words, her anger at how foolish he was flaring up again.

"About what?" his voice, weary again, was muffled and floated to her from the place he was rummaging around for towels.

"About...this. Us. The mistakes we made...how I...how I feel." Her words hung heavily in airless silence for a moment before she doggedly pressed on, her words now drifting about out in even softer tones, an edge of stoniness to them that hadn't been there before. "I don't understand how you are so good at creating and solving mysteries and coming up with theories...how you seem to have this amazing insight into so many things...and yet...when it came to figuring me out you ended up being completely..."

The man was standing in his hallway, towels thrown askance around him, choking on the remnants of his broken heart that were fighting their way up into his throat. Her words were drifting in and out through his fuzzy, addled mind. He didn't understand...what was she saying...what was she trying to say?

"Kate I-" he was just about to offer up rebuke, to bewilderedly ask for clarification, when she stopped her babbling. He heard a sharp intake of breath and then a voice that he hadn't heard yet that morning. Her cop voice.

"Castle, what the HELL is this?"

The murder board. Oh sweet Stephen King, he'd left the murder board up and fallen asleep on his couch. The tables had turned.


End file.
